Monthly Archives: January 2015

Recently I purchased some magnetic clip-on lenses for my iPhone as I felt the fixed 29mm focal length of the iPhone 6 plus camera to be very limiting. And as it is the one camera I will always have with me, it makes sense to buy accessories to make it more useful. I find holding the iPhone on its own or even with a case to be very precarious and I am always concerned about dropping it, which does not make it easy to take pictures. So I needed to buy a ‘camera grip’ and a tripod mount for my iPhone 6 plus, and I thought a bluetooth remote would come in handy as well. The tripod mount was for mounting my iPhone on a tripod so I could do test shots with the smartphone lens kits I bought for the iPhone (reviews to follow), and possibly to try out a recently released focus stacking app.

Next thing I would like to cover from the DiskStation is the Video playback function. One of the reasons for getting the DiskStation was to have all my DVDs/Blu-rays/HD-DVDs and home movies all stored in one place. The fact I can access them via my internet connection, is a real bonus. Continue reading DiskStation Video→

We have a pot of white Kalanchoe double flowers in our upstairs bathroom which has started to flower again. This looks very different to the Pink Kalanchoe I photographed a while back. I am particularly interested in what this flower looks like in UV-induced visible fluorescence (UVIVF). Continue reading Kalanchoe Double Flower→

As it was my turn to cook again on Tuesday, I took inspiration from the movie Men in Black 3. There is this scene in the movie where Agent K and Agent J went into a diner to get some pie. Agent K ended up ordering a slice of apple pie with cheddar. That gave me a craving for apple pie (or rather tart). Hence I decided that we were going to gave a 3-course dinner. Continue reading 3-course dinner→

Recently I had some black sugru left over from making some DIY changes to my iPhone belt holster. I decided that rather than let it go to waste, that I would fix it to one of my flower holders. Now that it has set for many days, it feels very firm. But what does it look like with the various lighting I use for shooting flowers? Will it be too intrusive? Continue reading Sugru – support for flowers→

Some people enjoy looking at the sky and observing the various deep sky objects out there. As for me, I would rather photograph these as it is more of a permanent record of the event. Hence the equipment I’ve accrued are more geared for imaging than observing.

Previously I had used the Sony A6000 with the William Optics 72 Megrez for astrophotography, mounted on the Astrotrac TT320X. I managed to image both the Andromeda galaxy and Pleiades during that first attempt with this camera. See here.

There were many signs that this would be a great camera for astrophotography, as it had addressed quite a few issues associated with earlier Sony E-mount models. Over the past week, I have had a few more opportunities to do further astrophotography with the Sony A6000. Read on to find out more. Continue reading Sony A6000 for astrophotography part 2→

I was aware that there would be a special rare event occurring pre-dawn in UK on Saturday – the transit of three of Jupiter’s moons each casting their shadows onto the surface of Jupiter; the next time this would happen would be in 2032 (hence my friend and I thought that we better not miss it). Continue reading Jupiter triple moon transit→

On my day off on Tuesday, as there was clear skies around 1pm I decided to take my telescope out for some solar imaging. The seeing has been fairly poor since the start of the year, which poses a particular problem when imaging at 9000mm effective focal length (900mm, 5x power mate, 2x crop factor of Micro 4/3rds camera). Continue reading Sunspot AR2266→

Our friend Janet brought a bunch of carnations for us when she came to visit. Hence as I have not imaged this flower with my various filters before, I thought I would put it through my indoor studio setup. For this photo shoot, I had the help of my youngest daughter, as she wanted to be involved. Obviously we took precautions with the appropriate UV eye protection gear and closing eyes before shooting with the flash. Continue reading Yellow Carnation→

When I last brought my daughters to Hobby Craft so they could buy some craft supplies, I decided that I wanted to make some home-made ghost chilli chocolates. Hence I bought the required supplies, waiting for the right time to make this. Continue reading Home-made chilli chocolate candy→